


An Evening at the Petit Trois

by SlippinMickeys



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 11:49:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17807450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlippinMickeys/pseuds/SlippinMickeys
Summary: Based on the prompt: Mulder and Scully's ex-lovers are jealous of the loving relationship they have now.





	An Evening at the Petit Trois

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bob79519](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bob79519/gifts).



She turned her head away from the door quickly, hoping her movement was inconspicuous. 

It wouldn’t do to let the two of them see her.  
  
As it was, she didn’t have much to worry about – they only had eyes for each other.   
  
She’d been sitting at the bar of one of the newer, more upscale establishments on the outskirts of Georgetown. It was trying a little too hard to be French –  black and white tiled floors, zinc bartop, dim lights, mirrors everywhere.   
  
It was full tonight – the bar was packed, and the tables were hard to get. They were led to a table in the corner where they’d both have a view of the entrance – as a former agent herself, she knew cops hated having their back to the door.  They must have had a reservation.   
  
He was dressed like he’d just come from the office – well cut charcoal suit, cornflower blue dress shirt --but he’d taken off his tie and looked casual, relaxed. Like there was nowhere he’d rather be.   
  
The woman had obviously gone home before their date – had taken the time to put her hair up, freshen her makeup. She was wearing a low-cut grey cardigan that showed off her décolletage and high-waisted black pants that hugged her waist but loosened as they went down, turning flowy and skirt-like. Her trim ankles sunk into simple, but expensive-looking black pumps. Fuck-me shoes.   
  
“Fuck me,” she said to herself, watching the two of them in the mirror above the bar.   
  
The man reached out and grabbed the woman’s right hand, his thumb playing with hers. They hadn’t even glanced at their menus.   
  
She couldn’t help but emit a soft, weary groan aloud.   
  
XxXxXxXxXxX   
  
The man sitting next to her at the bar turned his head towards her upon the sound. He’d sat down 30 minutes after she had and had kept to himself. She liked him already for that – she came here to drink, not make small talk or get hit on.   
  
He caught her eyes in the mirror behind the bar and then followed where her gaze had been directed. He cut his eyes quickly back to her.   
  
“New love, huh?” He said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “Disgusting,” he added, with a small but charming smile.   
  
“I don’t think it’s that new,” she said dejectedly, which caused him to cut his gaze back towards the couple and she saw his eyes round, as he sat up straight.   
  
She was suddenly interested.   
  
“You know them?” She asked.   
  
He nodded his head toward their reflection.   
  
“My ex,” he said, still looking a bit stunned.   
  
She breathed out a loaded sigh.   
  
“Mine too,” she said, eventually.   
  
“No shit?” He asked, eyebrows reaching for the ceiling.   
  
“No shit.”   
  
He held out a hand then, introducing himself.   
  
“Ethan Minette.”   
  
She gave his proffered hand a firm shake.   
  
“Diana.”   
  
“Can I buy you a commiserative drink, Diana?”   
  
Diana looked at the dead soldier in front of her and thought of the several others that had come before it. What was one more straw on the camel?   
  
“Why the hell not.”   
  
Ethan motioned the bartender over and before she knew it, two new drinks had appeared in front of them.   
  
She felt raw seeing Mulder; scraped and exposed. When the Smoking Man had helped her fake her own death, she’d felt clear and unfettered, free to go off and live life with a clean slate – at least emotionally. Working for the Syndicate wasn’t exactly the recipe for clean living.   
  
She stole one more glance at them, sitting at the table moony-eyed and resplendent. Leaning in toward each other, small smiles on their faces. He didn’t even take his eyes off of her when the waiter came by to take their drink order.   
  
Mulder had never been like that with her. The way Mulder and Scully were around each other, it was so… intimate. They were like twin binary stars in their own unique orbit. Nobody else was getting in.     
  
“He thinks I’m dead,” she said on depressive sigh.   
  
Ethan gave her an odd look, then blew out a loose raspberry, leaning back in the tall barstool.   
  
“I know what you mean,” he said, “she acts like I never even existed.”   
  
XxXxXxXxXxX

“God,” Ethan said, “she looks… luminous.”

They were at least two more drinks in—Diana had stopped counting—and had eased into the comfortable barstool familiarity of shared loss and excessive drink.

Diana looked at her own reflection, the laugh lines coming in around her eyes, her graying hair. Her eyes were drifting down to her sagging bosom when Ethan made a move to turn towards them.

“Maybe I should go say hi,” he said, swaying a bit on his stool.

Diana reached a hand out to steady him.

“NO!” She said, a little too forcefully. Ethan threw her a look. “No,” she said again, a little more measured, “let’s not… interrupt… _that_ .” 

He turned back to the bar and gave his drink a long look.

“She’s so pretty,” he said quietly.

She was pretty, Diana ruminated. Luminous, like Ethan said. She hadn’t changed since she was in the academy (Diana had kept tabs). If anything she just got more beautiful as she aged. Right now she was positively glowing. She wondered vaguely if Scully kept a portrait of Dorian Grey in her fucking attic.

“What’s he got that I haven’t?”

Diana opened her mouth just before he said—

“Don’t answer that.”

Mulder and Scully’s food arrived at their table and they dug in. Mulder made an ecstatic face over his first bite and extended a forkful to Scully, who took a mouthful slowly, her eyes never leaving his. It was tender, sensual—Diana could sense the shift in tension from all the way over at the bar. She had to turn away.

“What happened with the two of you?” Diana asked Ethan. 

“She got a new assignment at work. Some weird detail – I don’t know specifics. She stopped having time for me. For us. It’s almost like I faded away.”

 _Some weird detail_ was right – she’d give him that. Diana’s own time on the X-Files had shown her the depth of the stranger things of the world. 

“How about you guys?” Ethan nodded to Mulder’s reflection.

  
“You could call it a divorce,” she said, but didn’t elaborate. Ethan glanced at her and she lifted a shoulder. “Of sorts,” she finished lamely. 

“Where’d you guys meet?” Ethan asked her.

“At the FBI,” she said.

“You mean he’s an agent, too?” Ethan asked, his dander up once again. “I knew I should have talked her out of joining. I thought it’d be good for her, different.”

He had no idea. Diana thought of Scully’s file. Of everything she’d been through since joining the X-Files, and felt a pang of something like sympathy, like regret. She watched Mulder reach across the table and tuck a lock of Scully’s hair that had come loose from her chignon behind her ear. The sympathy faded away, but the regret held on.

“You didn’t move on?” Diana asked him.

“Did you?” He countered.

She’d tried. She had.

“Not exactly a person you can move on from…” Ethan said then, indicating Scully, but she only saw Fox.

She gave Ethan a sympathetic, melancholy smile.

The bartender stopped by again, and they looked at each other and nodded. _When life gives you lemons, add vodka._

XxXxXxXxXxX

Diana had to pee, but she didn’t want to run the risk of running into Scully in the bathroom.

“Is he allergic to anything?” Ethan then asked her, his words getting a little slurry. “We could send it to their table.”

Diana snorted. She was feeling a little slurry, too.

“Rational thought,” Diana answered, and Ethan gave a high pitch giggle.

“They make a good couple, then,” he said on a burp, “because that’s all she’s got.”

Mulder stood then and made his way to the restroom and Diana fought off vague pangs of jealousy in more ways than one.

She watched Scully in the mirror, as she tucked her chin toward her chest, a secret smile on her face. Scully sat up then, seeming to feel Diana’s eyes on her and she turned toward her.

Instead of looking at Diana, however, her eyes found Ethan’s profile and she narrowed her eyes in almost-recognition.

Mulder chose that moment to come back from the bathroom and instead of retaking his seat, he slid into the booth next to Scully and she paid no further attention to the two dispirited souls at the bar.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder signaled for the check and Diana closed out with the bartender, paying for Ethan’s drinks as well.

“Thank you,” he said to her, squinting a bit, though full of sincerity.

Mulder and Scully stood from the booth and Mulder took her coat from the waiter and helped her into it, all manners. Once she was buttoned up, he took her by the lapels and tucked them tenderly up under her chin. She canted her head back and gave him a dreamy smile.

Diana grabbed Ethan by the shoulder and leaned her head into him as Mulder and Scully passed behind them, shielding their faces from view.

“It’s been nice meeting you, Ethan,” she said softly into his ear, realizing that it had been. She felt like herself for once, if not herself with a headbuzz.

“You too, Diana.”

Once Mulder and Scully had left the restaurant, Diana made a beeline for the restroom.

Washing her hands after using the facilities, she took a good look at herself in the antique mirror, the dull patina lending a yellowish pallor to her skin.

Had it all been worth it? The choices she’d made? The acts she’d committed?

She realized that they had been, just not for herself.

As she made her way from the restroom to leave, she saw Ethan, still sitting in his barstool dejectedly. She caught eyes with the bartender, who inclined his head at the man.

She sighed.

“Come on,” she said to him as she approached, “let me help get you home.”

Ethan nodded and slowly stood without a word.

They made their way outside and she turned to him.

“Can I call you a cab?” She asked him.

He shook his head.

“I can walk,” he said and took a slow 360 degree turn before heading down the sidewalk to the north.

Diana caught up with him after a few steps and grabbed his elbow.

“You’re sure this is the right way?”

“85 percent,” he said and plowed ahead.

“I’ll walk with you,” she said, not wanting to be responsible if something happened to the guy. The police would check receipts from the restaurant and security tapes and she wanted no part of that.

The restaurant had a currently empty outdoor patio adjacent to their parking lot, the tinny sound of Edith Piaf wafted over them from some hidden speaker as they passed by. Ethan paused by a small copse of trees, just past the lot.

“Hold on,” he said, “I need a minute. I think I’m going to be sick.”

He stumbled into the shadows of the trees and sat down heavily, holding his head in his hands. Diana stepped in beside him, careful not to get too close, lest he get sick on her shoes.

Ethan began taking deep breaths, probably trying to stop the world from spinning and she looked around, movement catching her attention by a car not far away.

There was a couple huddled close to each other in between cars in the lot, and after a second she realized that they were swaying, the woman’s hand in the man’s, dancing to Edith Piaf in the dusky, buzzing light of a parking lot lamppost.

It was Mulder and Scully. Of course it was.

She felt the clasping grab of jealousy, squeezing her so tight that tears formed in her eyes, threatening to fall, to let loose the torrent inside her of humility and regret. She clenched a fist and refused them.

The song ended then, blessedly, and Mulder brought Scully’s hand to his lips. She leaned back against the car door though they were still huddled close, saying their goodbyes.

Diana could hear them and knew that she was unseen and she willed Ethan to not get sick and call attention to their whole tableau.

“Thanks for taking me out tonight,” Scully said, her voice low. “I know it’s not our usual.”

Mulder moved in even closer, nudging her.

“You deserve it,” he said, his voice like gravel.

Diana knew that voice. Remembered it and felt a pang of something, sad and desiderate.

“We’re getting audited tomorrow, Mulder,” she said, “anybody about to go through that deserves it.”

“Speaking of, I’m expensing the whole dinner,” Mulder said, taking another step towards her, backing her into the car.

She smiled up at him.

Ethan gave a small groan at her feet, and she looked down. He seemed to recover himself.

When she glanced back at the agents, Mulder was just dipping his head down, and he started taking small, sipping kisses at Scully’s lips. She reached up and ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head, pulling him down even lower.

Mulder took the edges of his long trench coat and wrapped them around Scully’s shoulders as he kissed her, cocooning her in his embrace. His kisses were tender, reverential, and Diana knew then what she’d always suspected: any chance of ever getting him back was gone. Lost to the ether where love resided – something she never had with him – never would.

Their kisses grew more passionate and Diana knew that she should look away, but couldn’t.

Scully leaned back, their lips parting on a smack.

“Come home with me, Mulder,” she said in a husky voice.

Mulder simply nodded at her and smiled, leaned down again to resume their kiss, reaching around her to pull open the car door.

“If we’re going,” he said, nuzzling his face into her neck, “we need to go now, or I’m going take you right here against this car.”

Scully whipped the keys out of her pocket, even while her head was thrown back and pressed them into Mulder’s hands.

They spoke no more and tumbled into the car, practically peeling out of the parking lot and on into the night.

Ethan groaned and rose to his feet.

“I think I’m okay,” he said, finally. “I think it’s time to move on.”

It was.  


  


The End

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for you, Bob. I hope I did it justice. 
> 
> Many thanks as always to the world’s best beta.


End file.
